Chapter 15.—Of the Time of the
Migration of Abraham, When, According to the Commandment of God, He
Went Out from Haran.

When, after the record of the death
of Terah, the father of Abraham, we next read, “And the Lord said
to Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and
from thy father’s house,”894894Gen. xii. 1. etc., it is not to be supposed,
because this follows in the order of the narrative, that it also
followed in the chronological order of events. For if it were so,
there would be an insoluble difficulty. For after these words of
God which were spoken to Abraham, the Scripture says: “And
Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with
him. Now Abraham was seventy-five years old when he departed out
of Haran.”895895Gen. xii. 4. How can
this be true if he departed from Haran after his father’s
death? For when Terah was seventy years old, as is intimated
above, he begat Abraham; and if to this number we add the
seventy-five years which Abraham reckoned when he went out of
Haran, we get 145 years. Therefore that
320
was the number of the
years of Terah, when Abraham departed out of that city of
Mesopotamia; for he had reached the seventy-fifth year of his life,
and thus his father, who begat him in the seventieth year of his
life, had reached, as was said, his 145th. Therefore he did not
depart thence after his father’s death, that is, after the 205
years his father lived; but the year of his departure from that
place, seeing it was his seventy-fifth, is inferred beyond a doubt
to have been the 145th of his father, who begat him in his
seventieth year. And thus it is to be understood that the
Scripture, according to its custom, has gone back to the time which
had already been passed by the narrative; just as above, when it
had mentioned the grandsons of Noah, it said that they were in
their nations and tongues; and yet afterwards, as if this also had
followed in order of time, it says, “And the whole earth was of
one lip, and one speech for all.”896896Gen. xi. 1. How, then, could they be said to
be in their own nations and according to their own tongues, if
there was one for all; except because the narrative goes back to
gather up what it had passed over? Here, too, in the same way,
after saying, “And the days of Terah in Haran were 205 years, and
Terah died in Haran,” the Scripture, going back to what had been
passed over in order to complete what had been begun about Terah,
says, “And the Lord said to Abram, Get thee out of thy
country,”897897Gen. xii. 1. etc. After
which words of God it is added, “And Abram departed, as the Lord
spake unto him; and Lot went with him. But Abram was seventy-five
years old when he departed out of Haran.” Therefore it was done
when his father was in the 145th year of his age; for it was then
the seventy-fifth of his own. But this question is also solved in
another way, that the seventy-five years of Abraham when he
departed out of Haran are reckoned from the year in which he was
delivered from the fire of the Chaldeans, not from that of his
birth, as if he was rather to be held as having been born
then.

Now the blessed Stephen, in
narrating these things in the Acts of the Apostles, says: “The
God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in
Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get
thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy
father’s house, and come into the land which I will show
thee.”898898Acts vii. 2, 3. According
to these words of Stephen, God spoke to Abraham, not after the
death of his father, who certainly died in Haran, where his son
also dwelt with him, but before he dwelt in that city, although he
was already in Mesopotamia. Therefore he had already departed
from the Chaldeans. So that when Stephen adds, “Then Abraham
went out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran,”899899Acts vii. 4. this does
not point out what took place after God spoke to him (for it was
not after these words of God that he went out of the land of the
Chaldeans, since he says that God spoke to him in Mesopotamia), but
the word “then” which he uses refers to that whole period from
his going out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelling in Haran.
Likewise in what follows, “And thenceforth, when his father was
dead, he settled him in this land, wherein ye now dwell, and your
fathers,” he does not say, after his father was dead he went out
from Haran; but thenceforth he settled him here, after his father
was dead. It is to be understood, therefore, that God had spoken
to Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran;
but that he came to Haran with his father, keeping in mind the
precept of God, and that he went out thence in his own
seventy-fifth year, which was his father’s 145th. But he says
that his settlement in the land of Canaan, not his going forth from
Haran, took place after his father’s death; because his father
was already dead when he purchased the land, and personally entered
on possession of it. But when, on his having already settled in
Mesopotamia, that is, already gone out of the land of the
Chaldeans, God says, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
kindred, and from thy father’s house,”900900Gen. xii. 1. this means, not that he should cast
out his body from thence, for he had already done that, but that he
should tear away his soul. For he had not gone out from thence in
mind, if he was held by the hope and desire of returning,—a hope
and desire which was to be cut off by God’s command and help, and
by his own obedience. It would indeed be no incredible
supposition that afterwards, when Nahor followed his father,
Abraham then fulfilled the precept of the Lord, that he should
depart out of Haran with Sarah his wife and Lot his brother’s
son.